


Writing Letters Home

by ialpiriel



Series: The Doofus Noodle Gets Up To Shit [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Family, Gen, letter writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4570044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ialpiriel/pseuds/ialpiriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>six writes a letter home to her little brother. mostly backstory babbling? idk</p>
            </blockquote>





	Writing Letters Home

**Author's Note:**

> i actually have a list of all the sibling names somewhere, but i'm not sure where, so if they change or contradict, that's why. i mean in future/past pieces. all the names in this one are consistent

“Who are you writing to?” Veronica asks. Six is hunched over the piece of paper in her lap, laboriously and carefully writing out letters so they stay in the lines. It’s very different from her usual scrawl.

“Baby brother,” Six murmurs. “His name’s Les. Doesn’t talk, but he’s a sharp one. He got the eye for fitting things, like me an’ you and my Da all do. He’s nine years younger’n me, though, so we never really had much in common ‘til we were both adults. He still lives in the Yard. Still works with my Da sometimes, but mostly he just tinkers with things for people and they pay him in food and favors. Only seen him once since I left, but it was a good visit.”

“He doesn’t talk?” Veronica asks. She’s not surprised by Six’s description of her brother having an eye for things, since she’d said it runs in her family, but the fact her brother doesn’t talk is unusual enough to warrant notice.

“Yeah. He just. Don’t talk. His ears work fine, he just don’t use words. We sign to each other if we need to talk. Or we write. All depends.” Six looks back down at her letter. “Other kids went after him for it, but I walloped a few of the older ones upside the head and they quit. Taught him how to use a hammer. On people and on things. He was seven when I left, though, so I couldn’t show him what a _real_ hammer could do.” She nudges her super sledge with her knee and grins. “We’re close, though, closer’n me an’ Tom were before Tom left. Mam and Da always said it was a good thing he had one of us older kids to watch out for him, else he woulda gotten into serious trouble.” Six pauses for a moment, then laughs. “We both did anyway. I’d pick fights and then here’d come this tiny li’l kid who don’t talk, outta nowhere, swingin’ around a ball-peen hammer the way a henry swings a spike maul. Learned it from the best, I tell ya.” Six ducks her head, practically glowing with affection. “Always made sure all the little ones got enough to eat, still had a doctor give him a candy when he was real little, so that his gums’d stop bleeding and cuts’d stop openin’ back up. Said ‘s the same thing sailors used to have to deal with, way way back even before the war. Long before the war. Happens when you don’t eat fruit or somethin’.” Six shrugs. “Happens in the Yard often enough, I c’n tell you that.”

“Scurvy,” Veronica nods. It makes her think of pirates from the storybooks she read as a toddler, but it’s a reasonable threat out here, especially for people who don’t have to scavenge for every possible calorie they can get their hands on.

“Yeah, sounds right,” Six agrees. “Gave me inhalers so I could breathe, and gave him some vitamins so he’d stop bleeding. Rest of us kids were fine. Just us two and our shitty bodies.” She snorts. “Doctor came by later an’ tried to give me li’l pamphlets about havin’ sex. Mam wanted nothin’ to do with it cause I’d already told her I ain’t into boys. An’ then he tries to give it to us for Therese, who’s the sister older’n me, an’ she already knew, so it was really kind of a bust for him. All us kids got to watch it though. Very funny to watch a grown man blush and stutter around your very pregnant mam who don't take shit.” Six sets her letter aside and leans forward. “Got the brain from Da, but I got the hammerin’ from Mam. Seen her wrestle full-grown brahmin to the ground before. She’s a goddamn legend in the Yard.” Six shakes her head. “Miss it sometimes, all the people. Like the 38 for that reason. Y’all hate it ‘cause you’re livin’ in everyone else’s pockets, but I grew up with twice as many brothers ‘n’ sisters, so I ain’t got a problem. I like it. ‘S familiar, even if you all drink different things and tell jokes I haven’t heard ten times already.” Six picks up her letter again, twirls her pencil between her fingers. She drops it, picks it up, erases the accidental mark she made on her paper. “Wouldn’t go back, but I c’n get nostalgic, y’know?”

Veronica nods and looks away, but she sees Six nod back at her in the corner of her eye.

Six bends back over her letter, and they leave the conversation there.


End file.
